NEW YORK -- Liz Smith, the legendary New York gossip writer whose columns made her friends with the famous but once stirred the anger of a future president, died Sunday at age 94.

Known as the "Grand Dame of Dish," Smith began her journalism career as a CBS Radio news producer for Mike Wallace before starting as a ghostwriter for the Hearst gossip column Cholly Knickerbocker in the late 1950s.

She moved on to work for Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated in the 1960s, and then began a self-titled column at the New York Daily News in 1976.

Eventually, her column became syndicated in almost 70 newspapers as she made famous friends like Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando.

Among her most famous work was covering the high-profile divorce between then real estate tycoon Donald Trump and his wife, Ivana. Smith befriended Ivana as the columnist relentlessly covering the story.